Pedestrians have the right of way, though; they don't need to cooperate. A self-driving car shouldn't be allowed to run someone down just because they were jayw

Pedestrians have the right of way, though; they don't need to cooperate. A self-driving car shouldn't be allowed to run someone down just because they were jaywalking and didn't correlate the red light speeding towards them with an autonomous death machine. We generally don't let human drivers get away with mowing down pedestrians or hit-and-runs if they get caught, so why would it be an acceptable failure mode for a machine? Who is responsible for that failure and that death, in the eyes of the court? If the answer is 'nobody', then self-driving cars will have a lot of difficulty finding acceptance. Also, many states have regulations surrounding which colors of lights can go where on a car for these sorts of reasons - unambiguous and predictable communication is key to driving, and putting what looks like a brake light on the front of your car is confusing.